


close enough to know my heart beat (still not close enough for me)

by cchascona



Series: Neighbor!Au [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Do not repost to other websites, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Unrequited Love, but cassian doesn't know that, cassian has the worst friends but they mean well, rated T for mild swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23856961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cchascona/pseuds/cchascona
Summary: Cassian really needs to get over his crush on his new neighbor, which is almost impossible to do when he keeps running into her
Relationships: Bodhi Rook/Luke Skywalker, Cassian Andor & Han Solo, Cassian Andor & K-2SO, Cassian Andor & Kes Dameron, Cassian Andor & Shara Bey, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Jyn Erso & Bodhi Rook, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Shara Bey/Kes Dameron
Series: Neighbor!Au [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1777624
Comments: 45
Kudos: 150





	close enough to know my heart beat (still not close enough for me)

Rationally, Cassian knows Kay is a meticulous guy, who takes recycling and garbage selecting _very_ seriously, and sure, pizza boxes are a pain to properly dispose of, but it’s been almost 20 minutes since Kay went to take out the garbage, so Cassian decides to investigate, to make sure his friend hasn’t pissed off the wrong person again.

It doesn’t take long to find him, standing in front of apartment 701, talking to a petite woman surrounded by cardboard boxes, and everything about their body language suggests that she’s five seconds away from punching Kay in the face and that he’s doing everything to deserve it. He makes a run for it.

“... I get it, man, but like I just told you, I just moved in here, like 3 minutes ago, I’ll get to it as soon as all my stuff is organized...”

“Oh, I’m sorry, perhaps I missed the landlord’s memo informing me that the building's safety regulations were suspended until it is more agreeable to your personal schedule ”

Cassian practically jumps between them, apology already at the tip of his tongue.

“Hi, you must be the new tenant. Please excuse my roommate, this is just his way of saying ‘welcome to the building’”

“Roommate? So you actually live with this guy? Deliberately?”

And Cassian likes to think of himself as an intelligent man, or at the very least capable of maintaining basic conversation, but the moment he has a good look at this woman face, his brain short circuits.

She is just… really, _really pretty_.

He had already noticed she was short, barely making it to his chin, but she looks strong, with softly defined arms crossed in front of her chest and a small waist that - 

_Easy there, Andor_

He forces his gaze up from her legs, lean and strong, back to her face, and honestly this doesn't help at all. 

The first thing he notices are her eyes, big and bright and green, and they look like they can see right through him. Then is her pert nose, and her pouty mouth, in a face that still manages to be lovely, even with her brow is furrowed and her jaw is clenched by annoyance, all of that framed by the loose strands of her dark brown hair that have fallen from a messy low bun.

“No it isn’t” and of course, Kay’s inability to keep his mouth shut brings Cassian back to reality so quickly he swears he’s got whiplash “this is my way of informing our new neighbor that the empty boxes she left lying about the hallway are obstructing the passage, which is a clear fire hazard.”

Okay so now he really has to take control of this situation, before Jyn decides she doesn’t want anything to do with either of the assholes in 704, because he really doesn’t want Jyn to hate him, in fact, he sort of wants her to like him (and since when does he care about what people think of him?), even if a little bit, and that just won’t happen if Kay doesn’t shut his mouth.

“Yeah, well, he came with the apartment” he can pretty much feel Kay’s dirty look burning a hole in the back of his neck, but he decides to ignore it, and gives her a smile he hopes is both sarcastic and apologetic and apparently it works, because Jyn smiles back at him, and sure, it’s half a snarl, but it’s a smile nonetheless, and his brain melts at the sight.

Ok, he can do this, he can make her not hate him, not everything is lost here.

“I’m Cassian Andor, by the way” he says, extending his hand to her. She eyes it almost suspiciously, before shaking it.

“Jyn Erso”

“So...” he clears his throat, trying to ignore the fluttering, yet kind of pleasant feeling in the bottom of his stomach “do you need any help with these?” he gestures broadly to the boxes around them “you know, just so I can show you that the other tenants are actually kind of nice”.

Jyn’s smile now is less dry, more genuine and maybe is the late afternoon light playing tricks in his eyes, but he swears he can see a faint blush creeping up her cheeks.

“Oh”, she says, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear “that’s nice of you to offer, but - ”

“Okay Jyn, so your WiFi is all set up, and I’m really sorry I can’t help you out more, but they really need me at work right now, I swear I’ll make it up to you - ” a man comes out of the apartament, and he suddenly stops his rambling when he notices Cassian and Kay standing outside Jyn’s front door. He recovers quickly though, stretching out his hand to them, his smile broad and earnest.

“Oh, hi there. I’m Bodhi Rook”, and if Cassian’s stomach had been light and fluttery just moments ago, now it feels as if his guts has been filled with cement.

_Of course_ . _Of fucking course_. 

“We’re Cassian and Kay, we live in 704” he answers, throat suddenly dry, embarrassment boiling inside of him.

“Oh just look at you Jyn, making friends already” the man, Bodhi, laughs, affectionately throwing an arm around Jyn’s shoulders. She rolls her eyes in response, but Cassian can’t miss the fond upturn of her lips.

Kay actually snorts, and for the first time since they have known each other, Cassian is actually glad for his friend’s complete lack of filter, because this gives him an excuse to escape this awkward situation and go be completely mortified in the privacy of his own bedroom. 

“Well it was nice meeting you, but I gotta get going now…” Bodhi moves past them on a haste, but stops to pick up the empty boxes in the hallway “but don’t worry, I can throw these out for you - “

“ _Finally_ , someone with manners”

“- text me if you need my help later! ” he says looking over his shoulders, already halfway down the stairs, without sparing Kay or Cassian another glance.

“Yeah, we should get going too” Cassian grabs the front of Kay’s shirt, intent on dragging him back to their place before either of them can say something he will regret “It was nice meeting you, Jyn”

“Yeah, you too”, she says, already back at roaming through her stuff, and without looking up, she adds: “you, not so much, Kay”. 

Kay actually has the gall to scoff, sounding deeply offended, and even though Cassian has around twelve snide remarks about Kay’s reaction at finally finding someone unwilling to put up with any of his shit (god knows he deserves it), he is to bummed out to do it. 

He had been so close to ask her to maybe grab a pizza with them (with him), since she’d refused his offer to let him help her out - and really, that should have been enough to make him see it, because of course this beautiful, tough girl wouldn’t need her awkward new neighbor’s help, because she already had someone…

God, he can’t help but cringe when the imagines just how uncomfortable he must have made her feel when he had been staring at her, on the verge of asking her out, with her freaking boyfriend standing right in the next room.

He takes a deep breath trying to regain his famous self control, because really, it’s not like him to be this worked up over an interaction that lasted less than fifteen minutes.

He replays the whole thing on his mind, over and over again, trying - and mostly succeeding - to focus more on the words exchanged than on the color of Jyn’s eyes or how ready she had seemed to smack Kay, nevermind that he was probably twice as tall and thrice as broad as her. 

Okay, so now that his embarrassment has died out somewhat, he can look at everything objectively and really… it’s not as bad as he’d first thought. Sure, maybe he had been a little too friendly for someone he was seeing for the first time, certainly too friendly for his own personal standards - stoic is a word often used to describe him, not always in a flattering way - but definitely nothing inappropriate.

Alright, so he could fix this. It’s actually good that he knows right away that she is unavailable instead of weeks from now, after he could get to know her and god forbid, actually ask her out and definitely make a fool of himself. He just need to get over this crush (for lack of a better word), and everything would be under control. Everything would be fine

\----------

As it turns out, everything was _not_ fine.

You see, the thing about getting over your crush on your unavailable neighbor is that it’s pretty much impossible to do when you see her _all the time_.

And with every little encounter, he learns something about her, little details he probably has no business knowing, things he most likely wouldn’t have noticed if it was anyone else, but he can’t help himself. He is fascinated by her.

He learns that she’s an active person, because every morning he sees her in workout clothes and gym bag slung across her chest as he’s leaving for work. He learns that she likes chinese food, because he recognizes the logo from the place around the corner in the takeout bags she carries most days of the week. That she always takes the stairs, because the one time their downstairs neighbor had held the elevator door for her she had said “thanks, but I don’t trust that thing”. 

That also must mean she’s an observant person, because the damned thing had been out of service more often than not in the past three years, even if it’s working right now.

He learns that for all that Kay still calls her “the rude woman down the hall”, she’s actually a pretty nice neighbor to have. She keeps to herself mostly, never engages in small talk, with him or anyone else, and besides an older couple that came by once and Bodhi, she doesn’t seem to ever have anyone over.

She also agrees to sign up some packages for him, some old movies he’s bought online, and when he goes to collect them, she even compliments his film taste, and they end up talking about other movies they like. It’s a little awkward, because he isn’t used to share a lot about him with people he doesn’t know, and something tells him Jyn’s like that as well, but it’s their longest interaction since the day she moved in, and they find out they both share a love for WWII documentaries.

He also notices that even after that, while she still isn’t one for idle chat - and thank God, because he isn’t either - but her lips curl slightly upwards whenever they run into each other.

They never talk about music, but sometimes, when he walks past her door, he can hear the muffled sound of some 80’s rock band playing.

He sees the way she rolls her eyes everytime she sees Kay, and the one time she caught him staring at her while she was doing it, she had grinned at him, and he found himself smiling back

Kay noticed that too, and Cassian found out he didn’t care. 

He collects all these facts, storages them in the back of his mind, and then chastises himself, because what the hell is he even saving them _for_. He tells himself he’s doing it out f habit, because that is what Cassian is good at, it what he’s been doing all his life. Watching and learning from afar, where it is safe, where no one can tell he’d been looking in the first place. 

The only thing he learns about Jyn that he doesn’t like is that Bodhi is around a lot, and even that is hard to do, because it’s impossible to dislike him.

Bodhi just seems to be all around a great guy. The type of person who is genuinely, effortlessly nice. The sort of person that is kind, because he knows the world isn’t, maybe he’s seen the unkindness first hand, judging by how antsy he always seems to be, but then decided to do something about it. 

He was a lot more talkative than Jyn, always making small talk, and it’s a little awkward sometimes, but never intrusive. He is also always offering to do small favors and chores for the other neighbors, and the building’s elderly population is already enchanted by him, in a way they never were by Cassian. 

Seriously, even Kay liked him. 

And either he and Jyn have the healthiest, most trusting relationship ever, or there’s something obviously undesirable about Cassian, because Bodhi often invites Cassian (and even Kay, once) to hangout with him and his girlfriend.

And it makes Cassian feel awful, wondering just what is so blatantly wrong about him that Bodhi isn’t even a little bit worried at the idea of him and Jyn spending time together. Seems to welcome it, even.

And then he just feels worst, because really, how much of a piece of shit is he, if _wants_ Bodhi to feel threatened by him? 

Cassian decides to avoid both of them from now on, hoping that Bodhi will soon realize his friendliness is being wasted on him.

\----------

Cassian and Kay come home one friday night, after a particularly busy day at work, with Draven having them working a case until much later than they had to, and honestly all he wants right now is to fall face first in his bed and sleep through the weekend, and avoid all human interaction until monday

Clearly, the universe doesn’t give a damn about what he wants, because as soon as soon as he reaches his floor, Jyn’s door opens, and sure enough, Bodhi comes out, with Jyn close behind, and Cassian freezes on the spot at the sight of her. 

They are obviously going for a night out, because she is wearing a dress, the first time he’s seen Jyn in something other than leggings or jeans, and really he could have lived his entire life not knowing how smooth and toned and beautiful her legs are. His imagination would have sufficed. She is also wearing some make up, he thinks, and her hair is down, also a first, and somehow this is more distracting than the dress. He knows he’s staring, knows how wrong this is, how inappropriate, right here where the entire building can see, in front of his roommate and _her boyfriend_ , but he can’t help himself. He wants absorb her, take all of her in, commit the way she looks right now to his memory, along everything he knows about her because he knows this is the best he’ll ever get.

_Damn, if he’d thought she was pretty before…_

Bodhi is either a saint or really oblivious, because instead of telling him off for staring at his girlfriend when he sees them...

“Hey guys! Nice to see you! You guys are just coming back from work?”

“Unfortunately” he says with a tired sigh

“This broken system makes us feel like we should be grateful to be exploited” Kay adds flatly.

Jyn just rolls her eyes and Bodhi blinks up at him twice, but apparently they both decide it’s better to say nothing (good instinct), so Bodhi just turns back at Cassian and says:

“Well, we’re actually going out for some drinks, but we don’t know any good bars around here. We were thinking about giving that place around the corner a try”

“‘The Falcon’?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Do you know the place?” now it’s Jyn who is talking and Cassian’s eyes, that he had just forced to focus on Bodhi, find their way back to her, and really, he didn’t have the time to get used to how beautiful she looks, so if it takes him a little bit too long to respond, well that’s no one’s business. 

“Yeah, I actually know the owner. Good stuff, decent prices. But whatever you do, if Han offers you some of his homemade brew, do not take it”. He learned that lesson the hard way

Jyn snorts, and Cassian won’t analyze how it makes him feel all types of warmth in his chest. He’ll just enjoy it.

But, just like most things Cassian just wants to enjoy, it doesn’t last very long, because he notices Bodhi’s eyes jumping back and forth from him to Jyn, and Cassian starts to panic, thinking he’s been caught for sure now when…

“Would you guys like to join us? You know, to keep us from accidently poisoning ourselves?”

The pathetic, masochist part of him would like nothing more than to jump at the opportunity to spend some more time with Jyn, to get to know her a little better, maybe even make her laugh again.

The self-preserving, rational part notices the way Jyn flushes at the invitation, throwing Bodhi a look that is both imploring and angry, completely ignoring Cassian, and he tries to convince himself it only hurts a little.

God, she probably has noticed the way he keeps watching her, but hasn't told her boyfriend about the creep living next door…

Clearing his throat and trying to sound as casual as possible, he says “no thanks, but we’re just gonna head home”

“Excuse me, but you don’t speak for me” Kay sounds offended

“Yeah, you do enough of that already” Jyn snaps.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Usually, he would find Kay’s insulted tone hilarious, but he knows from experience that if Kay starts now he could go on for hours, and Cassian is just too tired to handle it right now, so he decides to intervene while he still can save everybody’s night.

“Kay, you said it yourself that you wanted to stay home tonight”.

“Yes, but it is a matter of principle”.

"Yeah well, you, me and your principles are going home. You two have a fun night”

“Yeah, maybe some other time” Bodhi says, a little awkwardly, and as he and Jyn make their way pass the two men, Cassian deliberately avoids looking at Jyns face, refusing to see the relief there.

\----------

There are three phrases, Cassian has found out over the years, that signal an incoming headache.

First, Draven’s “we don’t have enough evidence to follow the case through” after barging into his office.

Second, Kay’s “do you want me to calculate the odds of this working out?” at any given moment.

And third, Han Solo’s “so...”, always with an infuriating shit eating smirk.

The third one is the more aggravating, he thinks, as he’s peeling the label off of his beer bottle, very obviously trying to ignore the grinning bartender in front of him.

“So...” Han repeats, and it sounds like he knows something Cassian doesn’t, and probably won’t like very much “I met your girl last week, Andor”

At the mention of the word “girl”, Shara and Kes materialize themselves right next to Cassian, promptly occupying the free seats next to him

“What girl?”

“Cassian, you’re dating again and didn't tell us?”

“There’s nothing to tell. Han’s making things up, as usual”

“Oh really, so no pretty girl came here last friday, saying she knew you?”

Shara gasps, which, frankly, is a tad bit dramatic, if you ask him.

“It’s nothing like that” he says glaring at Han, who just smirks at him, completely unfazed. The ass. “She is my new neighbor, she asked me if I knew any good bars around, so I said she should come here”

“Thank you for that, by the way. The girl could outdrink me and Chewie combined, we made a fortune out of her”

“That’s it?” Shara says, wrinkling her nose “Han, you used to have better gossip for us...”

“That’s not it. Cassian has been pining for this woman since she moved in, four weeks, three days and approximately eight hours ago. It is annoying”

“Kay!” Cassian chokes on his beer, but Kay just stares blankly at him, as if daring Cassian to deny it, and over the years Cassian has become an expert in lying to himself, but right now he can’t. Not about this.

Damn Kay, always smacking the naked truth on his face, making it impossible to ignore or hide from. The next time someone wants to murder him, Cassian is going to let them. Hell, he is even going to help, make it look like an accident. Maybe then he’ll be able to live the rest of his life in sweet, peaceful denial.

“What? Cassian, you’ve had a crush on this woman for over a month and you haven’t told us?”

“I already told you, there’s nothing to tell, as I do not have a crush on my neighbor”

“Really? Because you don’t blush when you see the Johnson’s in the hallway. Or Mrs Rink. Or the Costas. You also don’t stutter when you talk to them. Only Jyn has that effect on you”

Shara squeaks, actually squeaks, like they are in high school again, and even Kes is chuckling at his expense. Honestly, he needs new friends.

“As much as I would like to hear the rest of this, I actually have work to do, with much better clients than any of you, so...” He throws Cassian one last sly smirk, before leaving him to the happy meddling couple’s mercy “and don’t ever say I don’t give you the best information again, Bey!” he shouts over his shoulder, as he makes his way to the other patrons.

Shara just rolls her eyes before turning them to Cassian, and it makes him feel like he’s about to be interrogated.“Now you have to tell me about her” Cassian would like to tell her to drop it, but his brain just melted from embarrassment, so he’s having trouble thinking up anything more complex than _murder Kay murder Kay murder Kay_

Finally, someone must take pity on him, because Kes says, with an apologetic smile:

“Man, you know she’ll get the information one way or another. Better if it’s from you”

“Fine” he rolls his eyes, defeated “her name is Jyn Erso, she moved across the hall form us. We talk sometimes, when we bump into each other. Apparently, we have the same taste in movies and chinese restaurants” he gives them the most objective, obvious facts, in his most controlled, uninterested voice, in the hopes of throwing Shara off, but he has a feeling she’s not buying it.

“She was also incredibly rude and unnecessarily antagonistic to me in every single one of our encounters” Kay says, like that’s the only thing worth knowing about Jyn.

“Were you talking during these encounters?” Shara asks him pointendly.

“Yes”

“Well, there’s your reason ”

Kay scoffs, Kes laughs out loud, and even Cassian can’t help the way his lips twitch upwards. That’s Shara Bey for you.

“And she has a boyfriend” He realizes it’s the first time he’s said it out loud, and his stomach churns in an unpleasant way. It’s almost like telling others that Jyn is unavailable makes it more real to him, which is just more evidence of how ridiculous he is being.

He’s known Jyn for over a month now, has seen her with Bodhi several times, there’s no reason why telling his friends about it makes it hurt more, but he finds that it does anyway.

Shara winces in sympathy, and Kes even clasps him on the shoulder, saying “that’s gotta suck man, but I’m sure you’ll find someone else”

And thankfully, that the last they say on the matter, and as the night goes on, Cassian finds himself going deeper and deeper inside his own head. Objectively, he knows Kes is right. 

There are a lot of women in the word, and a good number of them in this bar, some of which even approach and smile suggestively at him, to his immense surprise. He wills himself into feeling something, anything even remotely close to what he felt the first time he saw Jyn, that strange pull he still feels whenever they cross paths, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t keep images of bright blue eyes and rare, soft smiles made all the more charming by her slightly bucked teeth from popping up on his mind.

Jyn is not the only woman in the world, certainly not the first he’s been interested on, but as he finishes his last beer, he can’t help but feel she is going to be the last. 

\----------

After one particularly shitty tuesday at work, he comes home to find Jyn sitting in the hallway, her back to her door, legs stretched out in front of her, distractedly roaming through her phone. She looks up when she notices his approach.

“I forgot my keys at work” she tells him sheepishly.

“Oh. That sucks. Do you need me to call someone? Maybe the landlord?”

“Oh, no, there’s no need. Bodhi and I were supposed hang out tonight anyway, he’ll be over with his spare key as soon as he gets out of work.”

“Oh. Okay then.” he fumbles with his keys, trying to talk himself out of what he wants to do next. Her boyfriend is coming over, she’s got this covered, she doesn't need his help. But the thought of her, sitting in the hard floor, alone for god knows how long it’s too much to bare.

“You can wait at my place, if you’d like. I mean, just until Bodhi gets here” he’s not making a move on her, he is not. He’s being polite, he is being helpful, he is doing the neighborly thing. He’d do it for any of the other tenants.

_Would you?_ a voice that sounds remarkably like Kay’s whispers in the back of his mind

Jyn just stares at him for what feels like hours, and judging by the groceries currently defrosting and soaking through his bag, she probably does. He’s about to apologize, bracing himself for her to call him a creep when- 

“Really? You wouldn’t mind?”

“Not at all”

Jyn pretty much jumps to her feet, with a gracefulness he hadn’t expected “Thanks man, you’re a lifesaver”. She quickly texts Bodhi, warning him to look for her on Cassian's place when he gets here.

He’ll admit it, seeing Jyn in his space does things to him.

Jyn runs her eyes through his living room appreciatively, but really, Cassian knows there’s not much to see here. The walls and shelves pretty bare, safe from some books and old DVDs they haven’t watched in years, because Cassian doesn’t know shit about decorating, and Kay sees no point in it. The only thing of notice is the TV, flat screen, 50’. He and Kay had decided to splurge on it, because if they were going to spend most on their nights binge watching cop shows, they were going to do it right, damnit.

He doesn’t want to be caught staring, so he goes back to putting his groceries away and getting dinner started.

“Oh, so you actually know how to cook”

“Yeah” he says with a laugh, hoping he doesn’t sound as nervous as he feels “I started in college. Kay was more than happy to live on oatmeal and frozen burgers, so I took it upon myself to feed us both”

“What did you study?”

“I went to law school”

“Really? That’s impressive” after she is done pacing through his living room, she stop at his kitchen, and makes her way to one of his bar stools, leaning over the countertop, eying him with sincere interest.

He shrugs, trying, and probably failing to contain the satisfied blush on his cheeks after hearing her compliment him. 

“So, I take it as you don’t really care for cooking?”

Now she actually laughs, and it’s a pretty sound that he wants to hear again

“Nah, my brother would tell you that I can manage to burn water, and he’d be right. I usually just order take out”.

Oh, so she has a brother. he stores this new piece of information about her, marveling at how casually she had given it to him, before he tells himself to stop reading too much into it.

“So, how about you? Where do you work?” he asks, after what he hopes was an normal amount of silence

“Oh, I help my dad run his boxing gym. I also teach a self defense class there”

_Well, damn_

Knowing that this pretty, tiny girl could probably kick his ass eight days to Sunday, well, it does some other very interesting things to him, but he can’t analyze the right now, not when she’s looking at him with a smile that could only be described as smug, like she knows he knows she could kick his ass.

“Okay now, _that_ ’s is actually impressive”.

She shrugs, just like he did moments ago, but he can tell she’s pleased.

“Well, I grew up around the gym, never saw myself doing anything else”

“I see. And your brother works there too?”

Jyn scrunches up her nose, her whole face twisting like the very idea is absurd “Nah, that’s not really his thing. I can’t imagine him throwing a punch to save his life, to be honest. Sweetest dude I know”

“Well, I have no problem picturing you punching somebody”

She quirks an eyebrow at him, and he hurries to explain himself “I mean, the day you moved in? You looked about five seconds away from mauling Kay. It’s nice to know you could actually do it.”

Now she is grinning at him, and it’s so smug and almost feral, and it makes him more than a little stupid

“Oh yeah, I could totally kick his ass. You might have saved his life”

“I’ll be sure to tell him that”

“Somehow, I don’t believe that was the first time you had to do it”

“It wasn’t, but that’s kind of our thing.”

He proceeds to tell her about how he and Kay met (they were roommates in college and somehow got themselves into a bar fight on their first month. Cassian stopped some frat dude from smacking a bottle on Kay’s head, and when said frat boy’s friend had tried to punch Cassian, Kay simply grabbed frat dude number two by his tank top and threw him across the bar. They became inseparable after that.). He tells her about his dick of a boss, and the case he’s been working on, and that the food he’s making right now was his grandma’s recipe.

And to his immense surprise, Jyn tell him things about her, things he could not have picked up just by watching her, and therefore are much more valuable to him.

She tells him that the gym she works on actually belongs to her dad’s best friend, who took her and her brother in after her parents died. That she prefers to teach all women’s classes, but teaching kids is fun too. That she got into old movies as a kid, thanks to her mom, but the war documentaries were more her dad’s thing.

It both surprises and delights him, how easy it is to talk to her. She is still a bit guarded at first, talking in that calculating way, but he can feel her lowering her walls bit by bit, with every little bit of information of himself he offers her. He thinks (hopes) deliriously that maybe she was curious about him too. It should scare him, how much he wants to share with her, but somehow it doesn’t. He does feel pretty stupid though, because he can’t believe he avoided getting to know her just because some other (pretty great, actually) guy met her before him, because as it turns out, Jyn Erso is awesome.

He is so immersed in their conversation that he is actually confused when there’s a knock on his door, because he almost forgot Jyn wasn’t here to spend time with him in the first place.

He can only hope his disappointment doesn’t show on his face when he sees Bodhi on his doorstep.

“Hey man, heard you had a stray” he says good-heartedly, and behind him Jyn retorts “bite me ” almost sweetly.

“Anyway, I got your key and I brought Thai food, so...”

So this means Jyn has no reason to stay here. She seems to come at the same conclusion at the same time he does, because she promptly hops out of the barstool and makes her way out, and his heart absolutely does _not_ sink in his chest at how ready she was to leave.

To his surprise, she stops at his doorstep, and turns around to face him, her hand tugging on the pendant of her necklace, without looking him in the eye. “Well… thanks for everything, man” and when she does look at him, he could swear she is trying to say something more, without having to use words. Cassian has to swallow hard before answering. 

“Hey, it was no problem. Anytime” he says with a tight smile. They stare at each other for what feels like days, until Jyn abruptly turns on her heels without any sort of warning and follows Bodhi into her place, before he can even say “fire hazard”.

“Cassian” he must have stared at her closed door for longer than he realized, because he didn’t even notice Kay had come home. He is looking from Jyn’s apartment to Cassian, still on their doorstep, like he’s analyzing the situation.

He already knows he’s not going to like what he’s about to hear.

“The odds of this ending well for you are slim to none”

And Cassian knows Kay is just trying to look out for him, in his deadpanned, exhausting way, and that you can usually trust him to be right about these things, but just this once, he wishes Kay had miscalculated.

\------

He really shouldn't have drunk so much.

In his defence, it had been another crappy day at work (and he’s lost count of how many crappy days at work he’s had on a row), and Kay was out of town to visit his family, so he’d be going back to an empty apartment, and that thought is too depressing to contemplate, at least while he’s sober.

And the fact that it’s Chewie running the Falcon today instead of Han just means there will be a lot less of smirks and teasing and a lot more of drinks being poured into his glass in blissful, delightful _silence_.

Chewie had offered to take him home, or at least, Cassian thinks he did, he has trouble understanding the man’s thick accent with a clear head, but he had refused, as his place was just around the corner. 

He had made it to his building and to his floor with almost no incidents, but now is his door that’s giving him trouble. Namely, that it’s refusing to open, even after he’s jammed his key in the key hole. The damned thing seems to be stuck, because no matter how much or how forcefully he twists it, the key just won’t budge. He tries one more time, _chinga tu madre porque la maldita no abre_

In any other night, Cassian would be able to calmly think of a practical solution, and he’d be home in a matter of minutes. Unfortunately, in this particular night, Cassian is shitfaced drunk, so he does the only thing that seems right in the moment. He sits down on the floor, his back leaning against his door, and starts giggling.

He has no idea how long he’s been sitting there, before a soft voice makes its ways through his dizziness 

“Cassian?”

“Hey, it’s Jyn!” and actually this is perfect, because the only thing that could make him happier right now, besides being able to enter his own place, is Jyn.

She shushes him, but she seems happy while she does it. Good. He wants to make her happy

“Had a rough night?”

“Nah, the night was fine. It’s the door that’s the problem”

“Maybe it’s because you tried to open it with your car keys?”

He turns his eyes from her face, looking like she's trying really hard to bite back a smile _,_ towards the keyhole, now in eye level with him.

“Oh yeah. Guess I did”

“Can’t Kay let you in?”

“Kay is out of town. Family stuff”

“Oh well. Come on, then”. And she kneels down next to him, throwing one of his arms over her shoulders, so she can help him up. Years later, he’ll marvel at how easily she’d done it, considering their height difference, but right now he just want to enjoy the closeness between them.

“Where are we going?”

“I can’t leave you out here all alone. I mean… it would be a clear breach of the builging's safety regulation” the smile she shots up at him is brilliant.

Somehow, Jyn manages to open her own door with only one arm while keeping a very drunk Cassian in a somewhat vertical position, and and into her apartment. Cassian plops down on the couch, rather unceremoniously, limbs flailing everywhere, and suddenly he feels very content and tired, ready to let sleep take over him.

“There you go. Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?” and then Jyn is sitting with him on the couch, her left hip pressed into his middle, a tight fit because he pretty much takes up all of her sofa, and he can’t fall asleep right now, he just can’t, he has to enjoy their proximity while it lasts.

He smiles drunkenly at her, unable to give her anything more complex than that

“Maybe I should go get you a bucket” she says, looking at him like this whole thing is hilarious, and she looks so beautiful right now, her smile almost radiant in the dark apartment, and he notices the way a strand of her hair is falling into her eyes and…

He would never have done it, if he wasn’t drunk, but he is, so he raises his hand very slowly, to gently tuck that stray strand of hair behind her ear. Instead of immediately dropping his hand, as he should, he just… leaves it there, cupping her beautiful face, lightly stroking her cheek with his thumb, with a tenderness he didn’t believe he was capable of, much less in his current state. 

Jyn, who had been relaxed and laughing just moments ago, immediately tenses, still as if frozen under his touch.

“Cassian...” her voice is soft, barely above a whisper, but the way she is looking at him right now… it's intense, it almost burns, and no one has ever looked at Cassian like this.

“Cassian...” she clears her throat, voice a little firmer right now “Cassian, what are you trying to...”

It’s the last thing he hears before he passes out.

\----------

Cassian wakes up slowly, and before he can even open up his eyes, he knows there’s something wrong.

He has this distinctive feeling of discomfort, the sort you only have when you’ve spent the night somewhere you are not used to. With great effort, he opens his eyes, blinking himself awake, the sunlight coming through the window piercing his tired eyes. He looks around, trying to get a hold of his surroundings, when it suddenly hits him

The Falcon, the drinks, the door, _Jyn_ …

He bolts, jumping to his feet, ready to get the hell out of this place before its occupant wakes up and he has to face her, but…

The moment he’s standing, the hangover hits him like a brick wall falling on his head. His entire skull _throbs_ with a massive, almost blindly painful headache, his tongue feels like sandpaper, and his mouth tastes like he spent hours making out with a public restroom floor. He’s never felt this shitty in his life, not even the morning after he celebrated passing the bar exam, and Han had given him free drinks all night long. 

He drops back onto the couch, cradling his head on his hands, feeling as if it will fall off his shoulders if he lets it go. 

A chuckle punches its way through his ears, and he winces, partially because while usually he would have rejoiced at the almost melodic sound, right now it feels like a russian punk band is having a live concert inside his brain, and partially because he knows who is making this sound, and the last thing he wants to do right is to face her. 

And there she is, standing in front of him, wearing pajama shorts and a band t-shirt, a cup of tea on her hand, looking at him with a slightly condescending, highly amused smirk on her face.

He groans, feeling his mortification rising “God Jyn, I’m so sorry. I swear this has never happened before...”

“It’s fine, man, really - ”

“No it isn’t. It’s just that I… I had a shitty day at work yesterday, and needed to take the edge off, not that this is an excuse...”

“Cassian, I just said it’s okay.”

And there is something on her tone that makes him look up at her, because here he is, acting like a fucking teenager getting drunk for the first time, needing others to take care of him, and there she is, being inexplicably, unbelievably nice about it. She truly does not sound angry, or upset in any way, shape, or form, in fact… she sounds almost… happy.

_Hopeful_ , the part of his brain that he’s sure it’s still drunk uselessly offers.

Months ago, he’d sworn to himself he would get this stupid, inappropriate, attraction to Jyn under control, and now he’s woken up in her apartment, after being too drunk to even get to his own home safely, _getting ideas_. 

He’s never felt less like himself, out of control and so _exposed_ in his life. He needs to retreat, to hide, put some distance between him and her immediately, and never see her again.

But he also needs to make this right, if possible. 

“Jyn… nothing about what I did last night is okay”

And her face fealls, looking almost hurt for a second, before she turns her eyes away from him for the first time. He doesn’t even think about how it makes no sense that this is what she seems upset about. He can only feel like even more of a jerk, because for some reason, he can’t stop himself from messing this up.

“Oh”, it’s all she says, and with just this one little word, he can feel her walls, the ones he’s sure she’d been slowing letting down around him raising all the way back up. She still won’t look at him,her lips tightly pressed into a thin, pale line.

“But I promise you it will never happen again” he says, feeling… not good, because that’s just not possible right now, but he feels a little calmer, he makes himself calmer, because he means what he’s saying, and he wants, _needs_ her to believe him. 

Jyn merely nods, her face now perfectly neutral, tugging on her necklace almost distractedly, and seeing her this guarded is an even harder slap to the face than the stricken ( _disappointed_ , the drunk voice inside him whispers) look she had just moments ago. 

He tells himself that it’s for the best. He should never have gotten this close to her anyway.

“Well...” if he had been in a hurry to leave this place, now he just can't stand the thought of spending another moment here “I’m going to leave you alone now. Thank you so much for your help, and once again, I am very sorry”.

He makes his way to the door, and she does not follow to see him out. His hand is on the doorknob when he hears her say behind him “we all do stupid shit when we’re drunk anyway”. And because he’s a weak, weak man, he turn on his heels to look at her, but she’s already disappearing down her hallway, without a second glance to him.

He practically runs out of there.

\----------

Shara Bey’s “So...” is not migraine inducing, like Han’s, it is more take-a-good-look-at-your-life-and-feel-the-shame inducing, but considering everything that has happened in the past month, Cassian figures he deserves a little bit of mortification. 

After sprinting out of Jyn’s apartment, he had used the last remains of his phone’s battery to call his landlord, and then he’d waited in the lobby for almost two hours for the man to get there, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, all the while putting up with his own headache, progressingly worst breath, and the judgemental looks from his neighbors. 

When he finally get there, mr. Raddus just gives him a funny look, but thankfully doesn’t say anything, and Cassian just chalks it up as first time offender privileges.

Kay scolds him enough when he gets home on sunday night, anyway.

On monday, when he actually has to leave his apartment and face the world, which includes risking the chance of seeing Jyn, he begins to make good on his promise to keep away from her. 

Which, as he had known since the day she moved in and this whole mess started, is hard to do, because she lives _right next to him_ , and that means he has to take progressively more drastic (and honestly, ridiculous) measures to avoid her.

It had started small, like leaving for work twenty minutes before it was necessary, just so he wouldn’t run into her while she was going to the gym. Then, he started taking the elevator because he knew Jyn wouldn’t (but his willingness to enter what Kay had so aptly called “The Box of Death” just to avoid an awkward situation could perhaps be considered an early sign of desperation).

He hit rock bottom on a thursday night, a little over a week after The Incident, when he was taking out the trash, as it was his turn, and Jyn came out of her place almost at the same time. 

He did the only thing that seemed logical at the time, which was turning on his heels quite literally running back to his place, refusing to go back out for several minutes. He’d even made Kay go and check to see if the coast was clear. Kay had agreed, begrudgingly so, and only said “the hallway is empty and it is your turn” before grabbing Cassian by the t-shirt and throwing him out.

So, all things considered, he had quite a lot to feel embarrassed about, but it wasn’t like he was about to _share_ any of that with his friends.

Shara, however, was not going to let it go so easily

“So...” she repeats, a little louder this time, so he couldn’t even pretend to not have heard her “how are things going with that Jyn girl?”

“Who is Jyn?” Luke asks, in his usually cheerful manner.

“The girl Cassian’s got a crush on” Kes answers, without looking up from his menu.

It’s one of those rare occasions in which the entire group has enough time and energy to come for drinks for a change, and they’re all crammed together in one of the Falcon’s many booths. Even Han is sitting with them, as it’s his day off, and more surprisingly, Luke has actually managed to get off from his new job a little earlier to come along. 

“I do not have a crush on her” he says, with a little more force than necessary “And things are not going anywhere” he notices the way Shara’s eyebrows raise, and quickly adds “there’s nowhere for them to go”

“Well, there have been some new developments” Kay says unprompted, and Cassian is already fighting the urge to bury his head on his hands

“Kay...” he means it to be a warning, but it sounds a lot more like begging.

He’s ignored anyway, the others leaning a little closer to better listen to Kay.

“As far as I am aware, Jyn once spent an afternoon in our apartment, while I was away...”

“She was locked out! I was being polite!”

“One week after, I overheard them talking about a re-screening some of the old movies they both seem to be so fond of...”

Kay just keeps going, ignoring Cassian’s groans and their friend’s laughter “And around three weeks ago, Cassian spent the night at Jyns apartment, after coming home drunk”

If his friends had been giggling like a bunch of schoolgirls just a second ago, now a deathly silence has fallen upon the table. Luke, Shara and Kes look appalled, and even Han looks a little shocked.

Great. Now he has to _explain himself_ , which means _talking about it_ , which is the last thing he wanted to do right now.

“Kay, buddy, remember that little conversation we had a while ago? About how the way you say things is just as important as what you say?”

“Yes. And I believe it only makes things even more complicated. Besides, in what other way should I have said it? You _did_ spend the night there”

“Cassian” Kes says, sounding and looking very much like one of the wrinkly nuns of his old school back home “You said this girl had a boyfriend”.

The catholic school boy inside him shivers.

“She does” he admits “but like I already said, it’s not like that”. He uselessly glares at Kay one last time, and then proceeds to tell them what happened.

He tells them everything, how Draven was being even more of jackass than usual, how much he’d had to drink that night, how he had mistaken his car keys for his house keys, how Jyn had come to his help and how he had slept alone, on her couch, _because that was an important detail, Kay_.

He tells them everything, in an uncharacteristic bout of honesty, everything except the whole hair-tucking-face-caressing thing, partially because he’s still not sure if that actually happened, and partially because he that moment feels to precious to share. He wants to keep that memory safe in the back of his mind, a beautiful last moment with Jyn.

“Well, I’m not going to say what happened was okay...” Shara says “but it really isn’t as bad as Kay made it out to be” she reaches across the table to lightly smack Kay on the back of the head, and it makes Cassian feel better than he’s felt in weeks.

“Yeah, but this girl must be an angel, if she really was so cool with it anyway” Kes adds, and by the looks of it he still has not let Cassian off the hook

“Have things been awkward, with her? You know, since...” Luke asks tentatively

“Uh… I don’t know, actually…We haven’t… I mean, I haven’t… seen her ever since.”

“Only because you’ve been running away from her like a scared teenager”

Kes, Shara and Luke actually laugh out loud, Kay just looks at them, confused, and Han…

Han had been uncharacteristically quiet this whole time. _Suspiciously_ so. But then Han smirks at him, and as worrisome as his silence was, Cassian simply knows that whatever is coming next is going to be worse.

“Well, if you guys want to know how Jyn feels about Cassian’s little stunt” he takes a very slow sip of his whiskey, the theatrical ass, and then gestures with his almost empty glass to the bar’s door direction “you could just ask her yourselves”

Cassian turn his head so fast he’s sure he pulled a muscle, but it doesn’t even registers it because _Jyn is right there_.

She has Bodhi with her, of course, both of them looking around the bar, probably looking for some place to sit. 

Cassian ducks his head before he can make eye contact with either of them, hoping he hasn't been noticed.

But of course, his friends don’t care about his hopes or his dignity, because they all simultaneously turn their heads to the door and stare at the newly arrived couple in the most open, obvious way. Shara even stands up from her seat to get a better look, and Luke turns an 180° so he can look at them directly and really haven’t these assholes ever heard of _discretion_?

“That’s Jyn?” Shara theatrically whispers, but to Cassian’s poor nerves, she may as well have shouted “she’s really pretty, man”

_Like he hasn’t noticed_

“Will you please sit down, she’s going to see you - ” he reaches over to try and pull her back to her seat, but Shara bats his hands off (very) easily.

“And I assume the man next to her is that Bodhi guy?”

“No Kes, that’s her Rabbi, who else would it be? Now can all of you stop staring at them before she noti - “

“HEY, ERSO!”

It is as if the entire world comes to a screeching halt, along with Cassian’s heart. Before he can do anything - strangling Han and running out the back door sound equally tempting - Jyn and Bodhi are looking in their direction (as is the rest of the bar, seriously, he is going to murder Han, he’ll handle it with Leia later) and Jyn’s eyes meet his.

He wants to look away, truly, he does, but he feels frozen under her gaze, and he feels all of the blood in his body rushing to his cheeks. She doesn’t look away either, just tilts her chin up, a subtle flush on her cheeks.

Bodhi seems unaware or unbothered by it, instead making his way to their table, his smile friendly as always, Jyn following close behind. Han greets them with a smirk and a “came back for a taste of my special brew, didn’t ya?”. They make small talk for a few minutes, and Han introduces them to the rest of the table, and sure, when he adds “but of course you know Cassian and Kay already...” it sounds innocent enough, but Cassian doubts Han Solo has ever said anything innocent in his life.

It’s uncomfortable, but not unbearable, especially now that Jyn has lifted her eyes from him in order to greet the others, and he can drop his to his half-empty beer bottle. He’s just thinking that he might make it through the night without another hiccup, and then...

“Would you like to join us?” the way Han is looking at him, and not the two newcomers as he makes the invitation, is anything but innocent. 

Before he can say or do anything, Shara, Kes and Luke voice their agreement to the invitation, and they scooch over to make more room in their already crammed booth. Somehow, Jyn ends ups squished between Bodhi and Luke, sitting directly in front of Cassian.

He almost expects it to be awful, but it isn’t, at least, not all of it. Sure, it’s a little awkward at first, but it’s the regular kind of awkward, the kind you feel when meeting new people, but Jyn and Bodhi power through it with ease.

For all of her closed off demeanour, Jyn possesses some form of natural magnetism that drawns people in, effortlessly befriending those around her. She has the whole table charmed in a matter of minutes, and while a part of him is a little sad to discover that Jyn is can easily build a camaraderie with just about anybody, that it wasn’t something exclusive to him, a part of him warms up seeing how well she fits with his friends. Not even an hour after she’s sat with them, she’s already promised Shara a free trial class at her gym and asks Kes about his latest case, and she and Kay politely ignore each other, and really, you couldn’t ask more of them.

And Bodhi, well. He’s still impossible to dislike.

He has no idea how much time has passed, but when Kes suggests a game of pool, he politely declines, finding the perfect excuse to quietly slip away to the bar to be alone for a few moments. He finds prolonged social interaction to be draining in a regular day, and tonight has been filled with surprises, so he more than welcomes the little break.

Only Jyn, Bodhi and Luke remained at the booth, the latter two talking so animatedly about their common interest in aerodynamic engineering it was as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist.

From the corner of his eye, he sees someone taking the bar stool next to him, and when he turns around he sees that it is Jyn, eyes fixed on the liquor shelf, very deliberately not looking at him. He’s spared from having to say something, because Lando comes waltzing to them, one of his knee-buckling smiles on his handsome face.

“Same as last time, boxer?”

“Thanks, Lando”

‘Same as last time' turns out to be scotch on the rocks, that Lando gives her with a flirty wink and she accepts without another word.

She must sense his tension, because she audibly sighs besides him, and without even turning to face him, she says “listen man, I just couldn’t handle another second of their nerdy talk” she points with her thumb behind her shoulder to where Luke and Bodhi are still deep in conversation “and I’m actually shit at pool, so… The bar it is.” she takes another sip of her drink to further emphasize her point.

He marvels briefly at how easily she can read him. Not one of his closest friends had even batted an eye when he distanced himself, chalking it up as his usual reserved nature, and Jyn Erso had seen right pass it. It’s weird, how he’s only known her for a couple of months, and it already seems like she can read him better than anyone else in his life. He mumbles something unintelligible in response, but it seems to be good enough for Jyn, so they fall into a not quite comfortable silence.

He used to like silence, only considers someone his friend if they can sit quietly next to him for hours and not feel the need to say anything, but this heavy, uncomfortable thing lingering between him and Jyn - he hates it.

He’s at war with himself, trying to think of something to say, anything that would be appropriate - god, he even the idea of small talk makes him cringe - when a small figure comes into in his line of vision, interrupting his train of thought. 

Leia Organa walks up to them, and, as it always happens, it feels as if she has all of the room under her command, effortlessly drawing everyone’s attention. Not even the awkwardness between them is a match for her. 

“Hi, you must Jyn. Han told me about you” she extends her hand, all formality in her pencil skirt and blazer, and Jyn, in her dark jeans and leather jacket hesitates briefly before shaking it. “I’m Luke’s sister”

“Nice meeting you, Leia”

“I was actually sitting with those two dorks over there”, Leia points to the booth only Luke and Bodhi are still occupying “and normally I’d wait for one of them to introduce us, but as they are too busy making heart eyes at one another, I decided to do it myself”

At Leia’s words, Cassian head snaps up, in the booth’s direction and it would be the understatement of the century to say that what he sees takes him by surprise. 

At first, he’d written off Luke and Bodhi’s instant chemistry as a result of the natural charisma they both had, mixed with the excitement you feel when you met someone with the same nerdy interests as you. But now that he is actually looking…

There’s nothing friendly about the way they are looking at each other. Or rather, it is something much _more_ than friendly. He searches his brain for a better description, but really, Leia had it right when she called it ‘heart eyes’. He knows this look. Kay has (rightfully) accused him of looking at Jyn like that.

He looks at Jym expecting her to break down crying, to curse, to slap Bodhi, to slap Luke, to start a brawl, to run out the door… He braces himself for each and everyone of these scenarios, and Jyn…

Jyn _snorts_ , quite loudly

“Good lord, I thought he’d have made a move by now”

“Oh, please don’t tell me Bodhi is one of the slow ones too”

Jyn laughs in response, and both women continue to chat animatedly, completely oblivious to the fact that Cassian feels as if someone had pulled a rug from under him. 

Why doesn’t Jyn care that her boyfriend is quite obviously flirting with some man he met at bar, in front of her? Why is Luke flirting back? How come Leia seems to approve of it? He has a nagging feeling that there’s something he’s not getting, like he’s being kept on the dark, the only one missing a punchline, and he hates the feeling. He can feel his head spinning franctly, trying desperately to get a hold of what he is seeing.

“Let’s make this interesting, shall we? If my brother makes a move on your brother first, you’ll buy me a drink”

Leia’s words are barely audible among the chaos going on in his mind, but two words miraculously make themselves heard above it all

_your brother..._

_Jyn has a brother_

_my brother would tell you I can manage to burn water_

_brother brother brother brother brother_

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Organa” 

Completely unaware that she’s sent Cassian down a spiral that made him question everything he knew about himself, relationships, his ability to read people, the universe and his own fucking existence, Leia leaves them, undoubtedly planning on distracting Solo until he loses at pool against Shara.

“Bodhi is your brother” he blurts out, before he can help himself.

Jyn turns her face at him for the first time since she sat down next to him, eyebrow raised in confusion. “Hmm yes? I told you I had brother”

“Yes, but you never said it was _Bodhi_ ” what was with it people looking pass important details today?

“I didn’t?” she frowns, like she’s trying to remember something “Oh. I guess not. Didn’t think I had to. I mean, what did you think he was anyway?” she shrugs, but she looks be a bit annoyed at him. 

He can’t blame her, actually, because he probably has been staring at her like he’s just had the biggest revelation of his life, like he’s found the answer to all the questions of the universe, like’s solved the biggest, most important puzzle of his life.

_And in a way_ , he thinks, _I have_.

And now, that the answer was quite unceremoniously thrown at his face, he doesn’t know what to with it. He turns away from her, feeling a blush creeping up to his cheeks, the embarrassment making it impossible to look at her.

“Oh” and there’s some sort of weight behind this little word that makes him look back at her. 

“Oh”, she repeats, turning her whole body in his direction, her knees rubbing against his thigh, the biggest smile he’s ever seen on her face.

God, she’s going to make fun of him, isn’t she? Her pathetic, clueless neighbor. He could handle her being angry at him. He could even handle her indifference, but he doesn’t believe he could survive her pity or her mockery.

But the way Jyn is looking at him… is not cruel, Jyn is many things, dry and snarky among them, but she’s never cruel. 

She is looking at him like she’s had a big revelation herself, a revelation he’s a part of, and unlike him, she actually knows what to do next.

She leaning in, impossible close to him, and the way she whispers “Cassian… did you think Bodhi was my boyfriend?” sends a shiver down his spine, and it must be some sort of delicious torture

He is paralyzed under her gaze, powerless, like’s felt since he’s met her, but this feels new somehow, terrifying and wonderful. He can’t do anything but gulp, and her smile widens, and her hand is on the back of his neck, and then…

She is pressing his lips to his

At first, he’s frozen on the spot, because if he had been questioning his existence just moments before, now it feels like the whole damn galaxy has ceased to exist, and the only thing that’s real is Jyn, and the fact that she’s here, single, and incredibly, miraculously, seems to want him too.

But then, in the back of his mind, the little voice that he’s been trying to keep quiet yells at him to stop being a moron and actually kiss her back.

He melts into her, tentatively wrapping his arms around her shoulders, terrified she’s going to pull away from him, because this whole damn thing still feels too good to be true.

They have to pull apart eventually, both gasping for breath. When Jyn looks up at him, he’s sure she’s never been more beautiful than right now, cheeks flushed, and a gentle smile playing on her (swollen, from his kiss) lips, her small hand curled around her pendant. He wants to say how gone he is for her, has been since the day they met, wants to apologize for being a idiot, for wasting months wallowing in self pity, when they could have been doing _this_ all along.

He opens and closes his mouth several times, trying to force the words out, and the only thing that keeps him from dying of embarrassment is the fact that she seems just as blissfully flustered as he is. 

“About time, Jynnie!” 

They are brought back from their reverie by Bodhi Rook, and when Cassian looks at him he looks smug, like, Han Solo levels of smug, and Cassian is surprised to find that he doesn’t even care, because since he’s found out Bodhi is Jyns brother, he became even more likeable.

Jyn however has no problem getting mad at him, and the phrase “if looks could kill” has never made more sense than right now. She takes a step on their direction, looking ready to trample him, and Cassian barely registers the look of utter terror flashing through Bodhi’s face when he realizes that _Jyn is getting away ._

And you know what?

No.

He’s lost enough time already.

Before she can get any further away, he reaches forward, his hands going to her waist, and pulls her back to him, flush against his chest, and he kisses her.

Or at least, he tries to, but it’s little hard with both of them grinning like idiots.

They do stop grinning eventually, so they can kiss properly, which they do for several minutes, before they absolutely have to stop to come up for air. They break the kiss, but they don’t pull away from one another, foreheads touching and noses bumping.

“When did you know?” she whispers, and he doesn’t even need to ask what she’s talking about.

“That first day, when I had to save Kay from being punched by you” he’s so happy he can’t be bothered to be ashamed by his confession “he would have deserved”. Feeling emboldened by the glint in her eyes, he raises his hand and tucks that stubborn strand of hair behind her ears, and very deliberately keeps his hand there, gently cupping her face, and she leans into it like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

They have done it before, after all.

“When did you know?” he asks, running his thumb against her cheek.

“That day in your apartment, when I locked myself out. I already thought you were cute, but then I smelled your cooking and I was done for”

“I’ll make that for you, anytime you want” he promises, earnestly.

“That sounds good” she whispers, closing her eyes “but I’d like it better if you made me breakfast”

He leans down for another kiss

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I still can't believe I actually did it.  
> I had this idea running through my mind for ages now, and decided to give it a try. I haven't actually published any fic in years, and I forgot how nice it feels  
> A huge shout out to content creators, fanartist and and fic authors, I can't thank you enough for all the joy you've brought me during this hard times.  
> Please, let me know what you think, and you can find me [on tumblr](https://eatsleepandsing.tumblr.com/) if you guys want to talk!
> 
> title inspired by the song [Never Had](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEvIaQifj5c), by Oscar Isaac


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